WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.395 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:03.395 --> 00:00:09.220 align:middle line:90% 00:00:09.220 --> 00:00:12.470 align:middle line:84% Thank you, it's really wonderful to be here. 00:00:12.470 --> 00:00:16.390 align:middle line:84% I forgot my reading glasses, so I borrowed Jim's and now I 00:00:16.390 --> 00:00:17.290 align:middle line:90% can't see you. 00:00:17.290 --> 00:00:19.630 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:19.630 --> 00:00:27.550 align:middle line:84% I first came to Tucson from an invitation from the Poetry 00:00:27.550 --> 00:00:29.980 align:middle line:90% Center 20 years ago. 00:00:29.980 --> 00:00:34.240 align:middle line:84% And I did not know then that I was going to marry a Tucson 00:00:34.240 --> 00:00:40.510 align:middle line:84% girl, I did not know I was going to have a Tucson family whom 00:00:40.510 --> 00:00:43.360 align:middle line:84% I love deeply and got attached to as I 00:00:43.360 --> 00:00:45.100 align:middle line:90% got attached to this place. 00:00:45.100 --> 00:00:51.070 align:middle line:84% And I had never had an imagination of this place. 00:00:51.070 --> 00:00:56.050 align:middle line:84% I just got invited, I thought Oh, great, I got off the plane. 00:00:56.050 --> 00:00:59.835 align:middle line:84% Was picked up by Lois Shelton, didn't know who she was, 00:00:59.835 --> 00:01:03.370 align:middle line:84% was driven, but I knew her husband's poetry. 00:01:03.370 --> 00:01:05.980 align:middle line:84% I had read it, was driven in town and thought, 00:01:05.980 --> 00:01:07.090 align:middle line:90% what a weird place. 00:01:07.090 --> 00:01:10.870 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:10.870 --> 00:01:13.540 align:middle line:84% Then to the Saguaro, an Octatillo, 00:01:13.540 --> 00:01:15.370 align:middle line:84% I didn't even know the names then, 00:01:15.370 --> 00:01:18.880 align:middle line:84% I just looked with wonder, saw the mountains, 00:01:18.880 --> 00:01:23.450 align:middle line:84% saw the beauty of the setting, but it was very strange to me. 00:01:23.450 --> 00:01:26.170 align:middle line:84% And when I got dropped off, I immediately 00:01:26.170 --> 00:01:29.050 align:middle line:84% as one does in a new place, I went out to take a walk 00:01:29.050 --> 00:01:30.640 align:middle line:90% and came to Speedway. 00:01:30.640 --> 00:01:34.060 align:middle line:84% And said, I see this is a sort of Los Angeles laid out 00:01:34.060 --> 00:01:38.320 align:middle line:84% over the desert, it didn't feel to me like a real place. 00:01:38.320 --> 00:01:40.190 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:40.190 --> 00:01:44.050 align:middle line:84% And I went into the poetry cottage, the old poetry cottage 00:01:44.050 --> 00:01:50.200 align:middle line:84% with the Poetry Center and on the wall were-- 00:01:50.200 --> 00:01:53.200 align:middle line:84% the first thing you saw was a great scrawled bit 00:01:53.200 --> 00:01:57.730 align:middle line:84% of a poem in Russian by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, 00:01:57.730 --> 00:01:59.590 align:middle line:90% which is impressive enough. 00:01:59.590 --> 00:02:03.730 align:middle line:84% A scrawled bit of a poem written on the wall by Stanley Kunitz. 00:02:03.730 --> 00:02:06.550 align:middle line:84% A scrawled bit of a poem written on the wall 00:02:06.550 --> 00:02:10.100 align:middle line:84% by Kenneth Rexroth, who for me coming from California 00:02:10.100 --> 00:02:11.140 align:middle line:90% was a personal hero. 00:02:11.140 --> 00:02:15.760 align:middle line:84% I got to touch the place where he had written on the wall um 00:02:15.760 --> 00:02:17.260 align:middle line:90% bits of poems by-- 00:02:17.260 --> 00:02:20.860 align:middle line:84% from the fantastic early book The Lost Pilot 00:02:20.860 --> 00:02:25.040 align:middle line:84% by my contemporary James Tate, poem by -- 00:02:25.040 --> 00:02:27.790 align:middle line:84% a scrap of a poem by Maxine Kumin, scrap 00:02:27.790 --> 00:02:30.160 align:middle line:90% of a poem by Denise Levertov. 00:02:30.160 --> 00:02:32.920 align:middle line:84% I felt I was in one of the most magical places 00:02:32.920 --> 00:02:35.530 align:middle line:90% that I had ever been. 00:02:35.530 --> 00:02:37.720 align:middle line:84% And was made to feel at home and, you know, 00:02:37.720 --> 00:02:41.320 align:middle line:84% stay for a few days, and get to know Tucson. 00:02:41.320 --> 00:02:44.800 align:middle line:84% And I'm afraid I thought what's to know when I heard 00:02:44.800 --> 00:02:48.070 align:middle line:84% this invitation, the place was also 00:02:48.070 --> 00:02:51.340 align:middle line:90% full of books about the desert. 00:02:51.340 --> 00:02:52.990 align:middle line:84% The poems of Dick Shelton were there. 00:02:52.990 --> 00:02:54.365 align:middle line:84% I had read some of them but I got 00:02:54.365 --> 00:02:56.380 align:middle line:84% to sit down and read a book of them. 00:02:56.380 --> 00:02:58.780 align:middle line:84% I got to look at the early writings of Gary 00:02:58.780 --> 00:03:03.700 align:middle line:84% Nabhan about the desert, pick up old books 00:03:03.700 --> 00:03:10.060 align:middle line:84% about the cacti of Arizona, old books about the Sonoran desert. 00:03:10.060 --> 00:03:14.260 align:middle line:84% And I understood that what the Poetry Center was, 00:03:14.260 --> 00:03:19.570 align:middle line:84% seeing this overlay of this extraordinary place, 00:03:19.570 --> 00:03:24.790 align:middle line:84% the Sonoran desert with this old mission settlement of Tucson 00:03:24.790 --> 00:03:30.100 align:middle line:84% grown into an American city with its Native American roots. 00:03:30.100 --> 00:03:32.830 align:middle line:84% And I understood what the Poetry Center was. 00:03:32.830 --> 00:03:36.160 align:middle line:84% That it was a place that had found-- 00:03:36.160 --> 00:03:38.410 align:middle line:84% got profoundly attached to and was 00:03:38.410 --> 00:03:42.310 align:middle line:84% growing a culture, out of the Natural History traditions, 00:03:42.310 --> 00:03:44.220 align:middle line:84% out of the Native American traditions, out 00:03:44.220 --> 00:03:46.270 align:middle line:84% of the Mexican-American traditions, 00:03:46.270 --> 00:03:48.880 align:middle line:84% and out of this tradition that came 00:03:48.880 --> 00:03:51.730 align:middle line:84% from the American public University. 00:03:51.730 --> 00:03:53.680 align:middle line:84% From this idea that the young were 00:03:53.680 --> 00:03:58.480 align:middle line:84% going to be educated for free or near to free, 00:03:58.480 --> 00:04:01.300 align:middle line:90% in the culture of their place. 00:04:01.300 --> 00:04:03.610 align:middle line:84% It was an amazement to me those days 00:04:03.610 --> 00:04:06.670 align:middle line:84% and it gave me an idea of what it 00:04:06.670 --> 00:04:10.270 align:middle line:84% might mean to be an American culture 00:04:10.270 --> 00:04:13.960 align:middle line:84% and how it was going to get made region by region and place 00:04:13.960 --> 00:04:16.930 align:middle line:84% by place out of the particular magics 00:04:16.930 --> 00:04:21.079 align:middle line:84% and biologies and theologies of a place. 00:04:21.079 --> 00:04:25.480 align:middle line:84% I don't know if you know, this 40th anniversary 00:04:25.480 --> 00:04:29.530 align:middle line:84% of the poetry that are how much it's meant to American poets 00:04:29.530 --> 00:04:32.470 align:middle line:84% all over the country for the last 40 years. 00:04:32.470 --> 00:04:34.960 align:middle line:84% In the map of the United States in peoples' 00:04:34.960 --> 00:04:39.700 align:middle line:84% heads one of the magical places, a cottage where writers could 00:04:39.700 --> 00:04:41.680 align:middle line:84% always come and stay for a few days 00:04:41.680 --> 00:04:46.150 align:middle line:84% with that extraordinary library if they needed a respite. 00:04:46.150 --> 00:04:47.530 align:middle line:84% I don't know if that's still true 00:04:47.530 --> 00:04:50.860 align:middle line:84% but it was true 20 years ago, that if you needed 00:04:50.860 --> 00:04:54.770 align:middle line:84% a few days to do some writing call Dick and Lois and say, 00:04:54.770 --> 00:04:57.130 align:middle line:84% could I use the cottage for a few days, 00:04:57.130 --> 00:04:59.710 align:middle line:90% to finish the piece of writing? 00:04:59.710 --> 00:05:03.850 align:middle line:84% So many American writers have done that over the years 00:05:03.850 --> 00:05:06.190 align:middle line:84% and come back with stories to tell 00:05:06.190 --> 00:05:08.400 align:middle line:90% about walking in the desert. 00:05:08.400 --> 00:05:13.140 align:middle line:84% I remember not long before he died, on my second visit here, 00:05:13.140 --> 00:05:16.920 align:middle line:84% walking out to the Desert Museum with Ray Carver, who 00:05:16.920 --> 00:05:20.250 align:middle line:90% knew he was dying of cancer. 00:05:20.250 --> 00:05:26.130 align:middle line:84% And we were-- there was that big sign about all 00:05:26.130 --> 00:05:29.640 align:middle line:84% the different creature life of the desert 00:05:29.640 --> 00:05:34.140 align:middle line:84% as you come into the Desert Museum and I glanced at it, 00:05:34.140 --> 00:05:37.200 align:middle line:84% I'd seen it before and I walked out eager to get out 00:05:37.200 --> 00:05:40.440 align:middle line:84% and it was the cacti were blossoming, 00:05:40.440 --> 00:05:42.270 align:middle line:84% I was anxious to get out and see them. 00:05:42.270 --> 00:05:43.930 align:middle line:84% And I looked around and Ray Carver 00:05:43.930 --> 00:05:48.820 align:middle line:84% was still standing there looking at the sign and I went back. 00:05:48.820 --> 00:05:53.550 align:middle line:84% At the top of it, the writing is all here, the top of it 00:05:53.550 --> 00:05:57.840 align:middle line:84% there's a snake about to enter a hole. 00:05:57.840 --> 00:06:02.040 align:middle line:84% And down here at the bottom of it, there's some little rodent, 00:06:02.040 --> 00:06:07.200 align:middle line:84% cowering, with...the snake is going to come in and Ray was 00:06:07.200 --> 00:06:11.010 align:middle line:84% standing there looking at it, just looking at it. 00:06:11.010 --> 00:06:15.330 align:middle line:90% And said, yeah. 00:06:15.330 --> 00:06:18.625 align:middle line:84% And then we set out and walked around. 00:06:18.625 --> 00:06:21.000 align:middle line:84% I think that was the last time I saw him before his death 00:06:21.000 --> 00:06:26.550 align:middle line:84% and it's a great contemplator of how people were up against it 00:06:26.550 --> 00:06:30.940 align:middle line:84% and wrote about it in brilliant ways. 00:06:30.940 --> 00:06:35.070 align:middle line:84% So I have many memories, grateful memories of this place 00:06:35.070 --> 00:06:37.600 align:middle line:84% and I don't know if you know, some of you 00:06:37.600 --> 00:06:41.370 align:middle line:84% do how much this Poetry Center is 00:06:41.370 --> 00:06:46.860 align:middle line:84% meant to American poets over the last 40 years. 00:06:46.860 --> 00:06:49.860 align:middle line:84% And how much it's been a model for the way 00:06:49.860 --> 00:06:53.130 align:middle line:84% that one might attach literature to a place. 00:06:53.130 --> 00:06:58.500 align:middle line:84% 15 years ago, when James Thurber's home 00:06:58.500 --> 00:07:04.725 align:middle line:84% in Columbus, Ohio went up for sale um the University bought 00:07:04.725 --> 00:07:07.950 align:middle line:84% it under the inspiration of Michael Rosen, a poet who 00:07:07.950 --> 00:07:11.730 align:middle line:84% spent a couple of days at the Poetry Center 00:07:11.730 --> 00:07:14.850 align:middle line:84% here and wanted to do for central Ohio, 00:07:14.850 --> 00:07:17.440 align:middle line:84% something like the Poetry Center here 00:07:17.440 --> 00:07:19.590 align:middle line:90% had done for the Sonoran desert. 00:07:19.590 --> 00:07:24.840 align:middle line:84% To make it a cultural center that reflected and dug 00:07:24.840 --> 00:07:32.430 align:middle line:84% into the deepest spiritual and physical qualities of a region. 00:07:32.430 --> 00:07:36.570 align:middle line:84% Recently, the home of Theodore Roethke 00:07:36.570 --> 00:07:41.760 align:middle line:84% first, important American poet of German background, his dad 00:07:41.760 --> 00:07:48.480 align:middle line:84% owned a wholesale florist business in upper Michigan. 00:07:48.480 --> 00:07:51.630 align:middle line:84% His house in Saginaw became available 00:07:51.630 --> 00:07:55.800 align:middle line:84% and again a committee was formed to try 00:07:55.800 --> 00:07:58.650 align:middle line:84% to buy that house in order to create 00:07:58.650 --> 00:08:02.240 align:middle line:84% a place for a museum, and a library, 00:08:02.240 --> 00:08:04.740 align:middle line:84% and a place where there might be poetry readings for writers 00:08:04.740 --> 00:08:09.240 align:middle line:84% to hang out, that would also be a library of the biology 00:08:09.240 --> 00:08:15.690 align:middle line:84% and culture of the upper Midwest and of the Great Lakes. 00:08:15.690 --> 00:08:19.110 align:middle line:84% The, offhand, the two models I could think of that 00:08:19.110 --> 00:08:23.310 align:middle line:84% spoke directly out of what was created by you here 00:08:23.310 --> 00:08:26.460 align:middle line:90% in the Arizona Poetry Center. 00:08:26.460 --> 00:08:30.720 align:middle line:84% It's quite an amazing resource that you've done wonders 00:08:30.720 --> 00:08:33.960 align:middle line:84% to create it and to sustain it and to make 00:08:33.960 --> 00:08:38.700 align:middle line:84% through it a connection between the arts and the natural world 00:08:38.700 --> 00:08:41.789 align:middle line:84% and the historical cultures of the place 00:08:41.789 --> 00:08:43.830 align:middle line:90% that really grows the place. 00:08:43.830 --> 00:08:47.010 align:middle line:84% Makes a culture where there will be a lot of people 00:08:47.010 --> 00:08:48.340 align:middle line:90% that make that effort. 00:08:48.340 --> 00:08:51.510 align:middle line:84% So I'm really thrilled and honored 00:08:51.510 --> 00:08:55.710 align:middle line:84% to get to be here on this 40th anniversary of the Poetry 00:08:55.710 --> 00:08:56.960 align:middle line:90% Center.